I used realistic textures on my buildings in anim8or I did have to modify them a little but it payed off anyways I used the anim8or internal render not opengl or scanline I used the raytrace Rendering mode

but a hint on creating buildings is to use as little meshes as possible but you want great quality. for my render and for each building I only used about 200 polygons witch is extremely small but I gave it good

quality using great textures. also instead of making parts of meshes peace by peace I use separate blocks to lower the polygons I stretch it across through the Main part of the building for more detail.

then I use the UV texture map tool to size the texture to fit in between the windows. It didn't take me very long and the quality came out great.

Sometime in the future I would like to create an anim8or neighborhood. I would make a layout with hills and places to put your house that you build. It would have to be limited so first come gets the spot. I would pm the layout to the ones that wanted it and they would claim their spot and pm the file back to me and then I would keep doing it untill all spots were claimed. When everyone got done building there homes I would send out the layout to each one so they could place their home and then send it back to me.

Then I get the fun of rendering it all. That could take days!!!

You could do the same with the city - Everyone could build their business/building. Put up signs - parking lot - you get the picture.